The Home Working Digital Toolkit

The Home Working Digital Toolkit

How to keep going when self-isolating

Written by Charles Falconer, Kent based Home/Remote Worker at Team Diagonal

With rapidly growing fears surrounding the coronavirus and looming possibility of a nationwide lockdown, it is important to know how we can keep our businesses running through this difficult period. This handy guide will inform you of some digital tools that we use for remote working, allowing you to successful communicate with your team from the comfort of your own homes.

Productivity & Communication

Whether it is a face to face discussion, briefing of a task or simply outlining of day to day tasks.

Video Meeting / Conferencing – Zoom allows you to message and host remote meetings via your desktop, tablet and mobile. Zoom is a free client (there are paid packages) that allows you to set up a meeting room and invite your colleagues to join.

You can download Zoom for your computer here. If you don’t have a desktop or laptop, there are also Zoom apps for iPhone and Android.

Productivity / Discussion – Slack is a piece of software which allows your team to message each other. You can message each other individually on a 121 basis or you can create channels for projects, and everyone can pitch in. This stops emails building up, reduces unnecessary calls and increases team collaboration from home.

You can download Slack for your computer here. If you don’t have a desktop or laptop, there are also Zoom apps for iPhone and Android.

Note: You can download Zoom for Slack, which will allow you to message and video call from the Slack dashboard using the Zoom integration.

Productivity / Tasks – Microsoft To Do is a simple piece of software that allows you to create to do lists. You can create work lists and share them with members of your team adding deadlines, notes and attachments to each task. Once a task is completed, it can be ticked off and the author of the list will be notified. Perfect way to keep track of your teams workflow.

You can download To Do for your computer here. If you don’t have a desktop or laptop, there are also Zoom apps for iPhone and Android.

Team Management

Although the above mentioned applications will help you manage your team successfully, you may need to keep tabs on who is signing in and contributing.

Employee Time Tracking – If you are a larger outfit and it is difficult keeping track of your employees activities, you can use a software that allows your employees to clock in and clock out, it shows you what your employee is doing and when.

Storage & Sharing

Cloud Storage – GoogleDrive / OneDrive / DropBox, these are applications that allow you to store and share documents throughout your team, it also allows live editing meaning you can add notes / edit a document while another team member is watching from another location. These programs start off free, you will need to upgrade if you need more memory.

Passwords & Security

It is always important to keep your computer and online presence safe and secure, but it can be a tall order to keep track of all your usernames and passwords.

Password Managers – Dashlane is one of many password managers, all of which have a variety of features, the majority however, help with; storing all of your passwords in a secure and encrypted ‘vault’, evaluating the strength of your passwords, logging into websites and applications automatically, autofilling web forms, and importing all existing usernames and passwords from your browsers. You can also share passwords securely between team members.

You can download Dashlane here for desktop and it is also available in Google Play and the Apple Store. If you want to compare managers then PC Mag have put together a chart for you here.

Remote working isn’t a new concept, it has been around for years with different companies needing different tools and software to function in their remote environments, therefore if you find yourself in need of a certain tool, chances are, it is out there and if you need more advice or help finding / navigating certain software during this lockdown phase, please contact us at team@diagonaldesign.co.uk and we will do our best to help.

Have you had success with a certain piece of software? Have you got any tips for working at home? Please comment below and share your experiences and thoughts so that we may help each other.

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